Amateur Radio Stuff!

SOTA – The Wrekin (G/WB-010) 7th May 2013

Despite living less than 10 miles away from the Wrekin, G/WB-010, on the outskirts of Telford, for nearly 20 years, I’d never even been up it… not even without a backpack full of electronic junk radio equipment…

7th May 2013 put paid to that.

Taking the opportunity to park at the quite large car park at the intersection of Ercall Lane and Wellington Road, I checked I had all the equipment needed, put on the boots and made my way across the road to the bottom of the path.

It doesn’t look far, looking from the M54 as you drive past, but being rather unfit, it was quite a long way, zig zagging up to the ‘Halfway House’ cafe… ‘Halfway’? If only!

Route up the Wrekin

Once past it, its a little further until the path turns South West towards the summit.. Fantastic!

However, the top of the hill you can see from there is actually ‘Hell Gate’.. Once past there, you can see what looks like the summit… only, it’s not, it’s ‘Heavens Gate’

Once past there, you can actually see the summit.. yay! It was at this point I was nearly run over by a 4×4 carrying a paraglider up to the summit… Oh, for a lift!

Eventually, I made it to the top! and wandered across to the trig. However, being rather busy this day, I decided to set up the stuff just to the North of it, slightly off the top, still within the activation zone.

View from the ‘shack’

Looking down on a police helicopter!

Not a huge amount of calls with the 5W from the 817nd, dipole for 2M and the norcal doublet via a portable tuner for HF, but the following made it into the log:

Time

Call

Band

Mode

Notes

11:20z

G7RHF/M

144MHz

FM

Al in much Wenlock

11:25z

M0IBC

144MHz

FM

Dave in Rowley Regis

11:26z

G6LUZ

144MHz

FM

Steve in Audlem

11:34z

G6ODU

144MHz

FM

Bob in Ormskirk

11:36z

M6RGF

144MHz

FM

Russ in Cheshire

11:36z

G0ALC

144MHz

FM

Joe in Walsall Wood

11:39z

G3NPJ

144MHz

FM

Alan on the Wirral

11:41z

M6IPD

144MHz

FM

Paul in Stourbrige

12:10z

M1NTO

144MHz

FM

Hugh in TYLDESLEY

12:39z

EA2CKX

14MHz

SSB

Pedro in Spain

12:41z

SM6DER

14MHz

SSB

Sten in Gothenberg Sweden

12:44z

OK1DVM

14MHz

SSB

MIROSLAV in Prague

12:47z

EA3HP

14MHz

SSB

Daniel in Catalunya

12:50z

OE5HDN

14MHz

SSB

Henry in Linz Austria

12:52z

OE1KLA

14MHz

SSB

Karl in Vienna

13:12z

G6TUH

14MHz

SSB

Mike SE England

13:14z

GI4ONL

14MHz

SSB

Victor N. Ireland

There was a couple of people on 60m, but I wasn’t able to tune the 44′ doublet to get a reasonable SWR.

Once the calls had dried up, I packed it all up and made my way back down to the car, considerably easier than coming up! Quite a way for a single point! None the less, an enjoyable time.